A friend of mine in the UK brought this up in an email the other day and is looking into it. Apparently as composers and artists it’s possible that we are missing out on another revenue stream. There are agencies, not PROs, that collect these royalties minus a commission.

The neighboring rights (public performance royalty in the sound recording) society in the United States is Sound Exchange, but the US concept of neighboring rights is different from that of most of the world. Those 75-some countries that signed the Rome Convention have reciprocity with one another when a sound recording is performed. Different territories have different distributions for the sound recording vs. performer.

Sound Exchange was created by statute. It administers the master performance royalties from satellite radio, webcasters and some other entities. 50% is allotted to the sound recording owner, 45% to the featured artist and 5% to the non-featured artist (paid by SAG AFTRA and AFM).

A record label may not recoup advances from the performer share.

Ex-US, Germany now gives reciprocity to the US for some performances (radio, tv, etc), and fortunately, a few other territories are moving in that direction.

I realized I may not have been entirely clear about the fact that the United States is NOT part of the Rome Convention, which is why we do not have reciprocity with many territories.

If a sound recording by a United States citizen is recorded outside of the US, most societies will pay performance royalties for that recording. Also, if a US recording features non-US citizens, those performers will likely receive performance royalties for the sound recording.

Also, by this: “Different territories have different distributions for the sound recording vs. performer.” I meant that different neighboring societies have different splits for the SR owner, the featured performer and the non-featured performers.

I started to register a PPL account, but I don’t know how this can affect my agreements with libraries.

Especially this: “To join as a recording rightsholder member, you must give PPL the exclusive UK public performance and broadcasting rights in your recordings, so that PPL can license those uses of your recordings on your behalf.”

Hi Art, thanks for your entry! You’re right, it’s complicated stuff… I just got the answer from PPL: “PPL do not license library music so in any case this would not affect your agreements you have in place in relation to music libraries.” Then I don’t understand why I must give the exclusive rights to them? Hmm… seems to be tricky.

This is all extremely complicated, but here’s my two cents: PPL doesn’t license library music, but it’s not always clear what is and what is not library music. If a work has been in a library but it has also been commercially released, there may in fact be a neighboring right.

NONE of this is complicated you need to get off your duff and fight for what is yours

Actually, it is complicated and broad statements can open a can of worms. For example, the Untied States does not officially recognize neighboring rights. The closest thing here is what Sound Exchange collects for featured performers and producers within the narrow scope of non-interactive digital performances on DSPs.This does not include typical uses of production music within productions.